Google has rolled out more spam updates in 2026 for one reason it gave: there is so much more new content. At the three-day Google Search Central Live Deep Dive event in Barcelona, Google said it is now using AI to help catch more spam, and that AI slop is increasing in Discover, according to an attendee recap.
Why Are There So Many Spam Updates in 2026?
Google’s team gave a direct answer at the event. John Campbell of We Are Roast summarized it in his recap: “A high percentage of content is spam, and that is what the spam updates target. There have been more spam updates recently because there is so much more new content. The team is now using AI to help catch more of it.”
His recap also flags a Discover-specific problem: “AI slop is increasing, which means more poor quality content in the [Discover] feed.” On how new filters are built: “User feedback is really important here. It is what new spam filters are built from.”
What Exactly Is Google Filtering?
Gary Illyes closed the morning with one figure, per the recap: Google filters out 40 billion spam pages a day. The number is not new: Google’s “How Search Works” page already says its systems find 40 billion spammy pages every day. The spam categories Google’s systems target include:
- Cloaking (showing Google content that differs from what users actually see on the page)
- Doorway pages (pages built purely to rank for a keyword, not to serve users)
- Scraped content
- Link spam
- Hacked content
- Scaled, low-effort content
The last item is the significant shift. Per John Campbell’s recap, “Gary’s warning was that scaled content is now becoming more of a problem than link spam.”
Why Does Google Keep Updating How It Judges Quality?
Campbell’s recap also outlined three reasons Google keeps updating how it judges quality:
- Content formats have expanded. Search has moved beyond “ten blue links.” Different media formats require different quality signals.
- Content breadth has grown. There are many more pages and sites than before. Core updates target content at the page level, not the domain level. Some pages on a site can rise while others fall within the same update.
- Content issues. This is spam: updates improve how Google catches cloaking, doorway pages, scraped content, link spam and hacked content. Campbell’s summary: “Expect more spam updates. Google is dealing with a growing flood of AI slop. Expect more spam updates and new spam thresholds. Scaled, low-effort content is the risk.”
Aleyda Solis, sharing Nacho Mascort’s breakdown of the Barcelona event on October 5, 2026, posed a practical audit question: “If you replaced your brand with a competitor’s, would the content still be just as useful? What makes your version worth choosing?”
What This Means for AI-Search Visibility
Here is the practical bottom line: if you publish AI-generated content at scale, your pages are now screened by spam systems that Google says use AI to catch more spam. In Hingewise’s view, that raises the bar for anything that looks mass-produced.
A concrete example, from the breakdown Aleyda Solis shared: “A useful template for 100 pages might offer much less value across 10,000.” The risk is that scaled content, the same sentence structures, the same absence of original detail, the same lack of any real human judgment applied across thousands of pages, is exactly what Google’s spam updates are now targeting, with scaled content flagged as becoming more of a problem than link spam.
In Hingewise’s view, there is a second risk that runs parallel to the rankings question. The quality pillars in Google’s recently updated helpful content documentation (effort, originality, talent or skill, and accuracy) likely overlap with what AI systems look for when selecting which sources to quote. AI Overviews (Google’s AI-generated answer panels in search results), ChatGPT, and Perplexity likely favor sources that show distinct expertise and real analysis. A page that reads as mass-produced to Google’s spam classifier is likely to read the same way to an AI model deciding what to cite.
Scaled AI content in 2026 therefore faces a two-front exposure: lower rankings in traditional search and lower citation rates in AI-generated answers. Both outcomes trace back to the same signal problem: the content does not offer anything distinct enough to be worth surfacing or quoting. This is Hingewise’s read, not a claim from the sources.
The watch point going forward: Campbell’s direct statement was “expect more spam updates and new spam thresholds.” How Google’s systems handle the gray zone between fully automated bulk output and AI-assisted, editorially reviewed content is the open question that the next cycle of spam updates will likely begin to answer.
Before You Scale Content: A Quick Check
- Does each page offer something a user cannot find on dozens of near-identical competitor pages?
- Can you point to the specific effort, originality, or skill that makes this page different from a template run?
- Does removing your brand name make the page indistinguishable from a competitor’s version?
- Does your template still deliver meaningful per-page value when applied across thousands of pages, not just dozens?
- Is any real-world signal or user feedback incorporated into the content, even at the category level?
- Have you assessed accuracy explicitly, not just readability?
Sources: Search Engine Roundtable, October 5, 2026; Google: Detecting Spam, How Google Search Works
Lam Nguyen · Hingewise
This article was drafted with AI assistance from the sources cited above and checked against them before publishing. The "What this means for AI-search visibility" section is Hingewise's editorial analysis, built on the frameworks and positions we use in our GEO work. How we work: Editorial policy.